


It's Been a Long Day

by woodpaintedflesh



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - TiMER, Don't Read This, F/M, I'm Sorry, Why Did I Write This?, You Have Been Warned, also sorry for title, heh, so much angst too, unless you like heartbreak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 18:13:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3905932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodpaintedflesh/pseuds/woodpaintedflesh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>based on tumblr user octeiviafankru's prompt: "SOULMATE AU CLARKE AND BELLAMY HAVE BEEN FRIENDS FOREVER WITH BLANK TIMERS WATCHING OCTAVIA/LINCOLN AND MINTY FALL IN LOVE AND THEN ONE OF THEM GETS HURT/DIES AND THEN THEY REALIZE WHY AND oWmy Y HEARt"</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Been a Long Day

**Author's Note:**

> so i've had this up on my tumblr, but decided to put it up on ff and ao3.
> 
> also i’ve never actually seen the movie TiMER so hopefully this is ok-ish. the only thing is i took out the element of “your timer is blank if your soulmate is not equipped with one” if that makes sense.
> 
> anyway, yeah. fuck.

It’s Been a Long Day

Prologue: the day everything began.

Bellamy and Clarke were inseparable since the moment they met.

They were six years old and in the second grade. It was recess, and Bellamy had been playing soccer with the other boys in the class when he accidently kicked the ball too hard and it hit a little blonde girl in the head and she went down with a yelp.

She was crying when he rushed over to her.

“Uh,” he panicked, eye the blood coming from her nose. “Don’t cry,” he pleaded. “You’ll be okay, the nurse will help you. C’mon,” he struggled to help the crying girl up. And although it was unnecessary, he slung one of her arms across his shoulders just like in those movies his mother didn’t like him watching. “What’s your name?”

The girl sniffled. “Clarke,” her voice muffled from her hand.

“Hi Clarke, I’m Bellamy,” he said, helping her walk to the nurse’s office. “How are you?” He was proud to say his mother had taught him good manners.

Her voice trembled. “Hurting.”

“Oh. Right.” He thought of something else to say. “I’m gonna be a big brother soon, isn’t that cool? Momma says my baby sister is coming home in a month! And I get to name her! That’s cool, right?” He beamed.

She just glared at him from under her lashes.

He shut up after that.

Bellamy waited for her to get better that day and sat with her in the nurse’s office for the rest of recess.

He tapped on the TiMER that had been attached to his wrist for as long as he could remember. He frowned. It had been working fine before he met Clarke, but as he looked at it in the nurse’s office, it was blank. He never knew what it was for, and his mother would only just give him a sly smile whenever he asked.

Bellamy chewed the inside of his cheek. He was afraid his mother would be upset that he broke it—even for a six year old, he knew they couldn’t afford much—so he decided he just wouldn’t tell her.

Clarke eyed the TiMER from her spot on the examination table. “S’that?” She asked, with a bloody tissue held to her face.

He shrugged, and grunted the universal noise of I don’t know. “‘Think I was born with it.

Clarke shrugged back. “Cool.”

When Clarke was released from the nurse with confirmation of no broken nose and he’d apologized profusely, just like his mother had taught him, she just smirked at him. “Maybe I can teach you how to play next time.”

...

Skip a few years, and their friendship is just as strong as ever. They’re twelve years old and beginning the seventh grade. This was the year Clarke had gotten weirdly obsessed with friendship bracelets. Almost everyone she met had gotten one, and those who did receive one cherished it, because you don’t just throw something made by _Clarke Griffin_ away. Little six year old Octavia had gotten one that said FIERCE (and then she promptly asked what that meant, to which Clarke replied with a smile, “It means you’re strong, O” and suddenly Octavia was convinced she could fight everyone in her class). This was also the year when Clarke and Bellamy learned what the TiMER is. It was supposed to count down to the day you find your soulmate.

Clarke scrunched up her nose. “That’s dumb. I don’t need a stupid watch to determine who I’m gonna end up with.”

Bellamy frowned. His had been broken for years. Did that mean he didn’t have one?

Clarke rolled her eyes at his expression. “You’re not really that hung up on that thing, are you?”

Bellamy stared at her. “ _Octavia’s_ —you know, my _six year old sister_ _Octavia_ —TiMER is working, and mine’s not."

She bumped his shoulder with her own playfully. “If you’re really that worried about it, I’ll be your soulmate.”

His eye twitched.

“Aw, don’t be sad,” she said with false sympathy. “Be happy. I’m awesome.”

He gave her a blank look.

She sighed. “Look, when we’re twenty five, and if you haven’t found the one, then... I don’t know, we’ll figure it out. Get married. Boom, solved.”

And then the next day, she skipped into the first class of the day with a level of cheeriness Bellamy didn’t know was possible to achieve that early in the morning, and dropped three brand new colorfully beaded friendship bracelets (he’d already received a plethora of them from her) onto his desk.

One of them said “DON’T BE SAD,” with it’s companion, “BE HAPPY.” The third one said “SOULMATE."

He turned his head to see Clarke already staring at him from her desk with a wide smile. She lifted her left arm to reveal an identical “SOULMATE” bracelet tied to her own wrist. Bellamy turned back around and hid his smile in his sweatshirt, and then slipped the bracelets on his wrist.

...

When they were sixteen and in the tenth grade, Jake Griffin died in a tragic car accident involving six other vehicles.

Aurora delivered the news to Bellamy, and it really hit him hard. Jake was the only father figure Bellamy had had. Worse still, Clarke and Abby were in the car with him at the time. Apparently they were both at the hospital—hurt, but relatively unscathed.

Bellamy rushed to the hospital, and found Abby in the waiting room with no indication that she’d been hurt at all.

They hugged, a little awkwardly, and Abby took him to the room where Clarke was staying.

She burst into tears when Bellamy walked in.

He took her in. “Shit,” he breathed.

She looked terrible—something Bellamy never thought Clarke Griffin could look. Dark circles bagged her eyes, which were waterlogged and bloodshot. Cuts decorated her face and neck and god only knows where else. And her left arm was in a cast slung around her neck.

“Shit, Clarke,’ he said again, and crossed the room in quick strides.

She scooted over, making room for him on the tiny hospital bed and he immediately complied to her unspoken wishes and slid under the covers with her.

He put an arm around her as she sagged against him and cried into his neck.

“He’s dead,” she sobbed.

He said nothing. Just held her because that was all he could do.

He stared at their matching SOULMATE bracelets, only they weren’t matching anymore because Clarke’s adorned tiny flecks of blood. He didn’t know whose blood it was, but his throat tightened all the same.

Bellamy held her tighter.

It was all he could do.

A few weeks after the funeral, Clarke cornered him while they were babysitting Octavia (although even at ten years old, she insisted she was old enough to look after herself while Aurora was away).

They were watching a movie when Clarke whispered, “Can you kiss me?”

Octavia was sitting on the couch opposite them, eyes fixated on the screen.

“ _What_?” Bellamy whisper-shouted. His heart was pounding in his chest because—well, okay, who hasn’t had a crush on Clarke Griffin?

She squirmed, clearly uncomfortable. “Well, you’ve got the experience, obviously,” and he huffed (it was true—he’d been kissing girls since middle school, whenever and wherever he could). “And I have, like, none, and I’m sad, and—I want to forget for a while. I guess. Never mind, that was a stupid thing to ask of you.”

He exhaled slowly through his nose. “Where’s all this coming from, Clarke?”

She sighed, and said quietly, “Finn Collins,” and Bellamy’s heart dropped, “asked me out, and guys usually don’t like inexperienced girls, and I really like him I think, and—”

“Yeah,” he cut her off, voice tight. “When O’s asleep.”

And later that night, long after Octavia was put to bed, Bellamy placed his lips on Clarkes—they were so very soft and innocent—and his body lit on fire.

He would’ve stayed that way forever, but Clarke pulled away with a gasp when her phone chimed.

“My mom,” she explained breathlessly, with a slight strain to her voice.

He nodded, and she turned to leave, but his hand reached out and encircled her good arm. “Clarke, wait.”

She turned back to him with a question in her eyes.

He stole a glance at her red, swollen mouth, and that stupidly mesmerizing beauty mark above her top lip, and suddenly there was so much he wanted to say to her, so much he wanted to do to and with her. But he knew that wasn’t his place.

So instead he just dropped her arm and said, “You can’t stay mad at her forever. She’s your mother.”

Clarke’s eyes hardened. “Is she? She was driving that night. She hasn’t even cried once!”

Bellamy flinched at her tone. “Everyone has a different way of grieving, Clarke—”

“Goodnight, Bellamy,” she said curtly and walked out.

For the first time in four years, he took off his SOULMATE bracelet.

...

Finn and Clarke dated for almost a full two years, and it was every teenage girl’s dream relationship. They had a date every Friday, sometimes to the movies, sometimes to a fancy restaurant. He’d even given her a _pet name_ —and it was _Princess_ of all things—and she’d lost her virginity to him, and he’d made it special—roses and candles and everything.

Bellamy tried dating. Really, he had. But all those girls had just turned into sleeping buddies, and when that phase passed, they became awkward encounters.

He would glare at his blank TiMER. “This is your fault.”

He watched everyone fall in love around him. Jasper met Maya on the first day of their senior year, and were never apart again. They were sickeningly in love; Bellamy couldn’t stand it sometimes. His best friend Nathan Miller surprised everyone the most when he met Monty Green in their shared chemistry class, and both their TiMERs went off. They’d both turned into a blushing, gooey mess.

Even Octavia’s TiMER was counting down to the last few weeks until she met her soulmate, which was unnerving to Bellamy. She was only twelve, for god’s sake. But hell—what could he do to stop it from happening?

Neither Clarke nor Finn had a TiMER of their own, so it wasn’t a surprise, come graduation day, when two-timer Finn Collins’s girlfriend from another state came by to surprise him with a giant teddy bear wearing a graduation cap and gown, and a kiss.

“Finn?” Clarke’s voice cracked as she watched him lock lips with the other girl.

Finn pushed the girl away. “Clarke—”

“How long?” Her voice was quiet and deadly, tears threatening to spill over.

His jaw jumped. “Almost four years.”

Clarke blinked, and the first tear spilled, but she wasn’t grief-stricken anymore; she was livid with anger. “Four..? We’ve been together for two years, Finn!”

Finn cringed. The dark haired girl looked between them. “Finn, what the hell is she talking about?”

“Raven, wait—”

“You cheated on her?” Clarke interrupted, voice trembling. “With me?”

“Princess...”

Clarke shook her head. “You don’t get to call me that anymore.”

She stormed off to find Bellamy, who was surrounded by his friends—Monty, Jasper, Nathan, and even John Murphy—with Aurora and Octavia not too far away.

She pushed past the small crowd and wrapped her arms around Bellamy.

“Woah, Griffin,” he teased. “Gonna miss me?”

Her only response was a sniffle.

Ever since she’d started to date Finn Collins, their friendship had turned a little rocky, but when he felt Clarke quivering in his arms, all those fights and sleepless nights were immediately forgotten.

He turned away from his friends and carefully led her away from the group. “Hey,” he coaxed. “Clarke, what’s wrong?" 

And when she mumbled Finn Collins’s name, Bellamy congratulated the boy in question for graduating high school with a punch to the face.

After dinner with their mothers that night, Clarke and Bellamy were sprawled over each other on the couch.

She was clearly upset, if the sniffles and the glaring were any indication, but at least she wasn’t crying anymore.

She turned the inside of her wrist toward her face and scoffed.

Bellamy prodded her leg. “What is it?”

“I can’t believe I was contemplating getting a TiMer because of Finn,” she laughed humorlessly. “What a disaster that would’ve been. Though I suppose it would’ve saved me from all the heartbreak in the long run.”

Bellamy clenched his jaw, and ran a soothing hand over her shin. He glanced down at his own wrist with disdain. “TiMER’s aren’t worth it, Clarke. Trust me on this.”

When she looked at him, her self-pity party packed up and left. Ever since she met him, his TiMER was blank, and although he must’ve not known what it was for at that age, it still hurt her to see him hurt over it. Clarke shifted so that she could sit halfway in his lap. His arm immediately wrapped around her and she laid her head on his chest.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“I know,” he responded.

“Love sucks.”

“I know.”

“...I meant what I said when we were twelve.”

His arms tightened around her then, and she felt his lips on top of her head.

“I know.”

His SOULMATE bracelet found its way back around his wrist that night.

...

The headaches started when they were twenty-three. They were roommates for the time being, and she’d come home late from her internship at the hospital, and would promptly collapse on the couch next to him with a migraine. Some nights, it got so bad that she threw up, and Bellamy urged her to go to the ER, or he’d take her himself. But she fought hard and said it was just stress from work. Bellamy wasn’t happy with it, but—it’s not like he can convince her to quit after working so hard for the internship.

And then one morning, she woke up in darkness.

“Bellamy?” She called from her bedroom. Her head pounded.

He opened her door with his toothbrush hanging from his mouth. “Mhm?”

Concern flooded through him at the sight of her: she was staring at her comforter, with one hand held to her forehead.

Bellamy pulled the toothbrush out of his mouth. “What is it?” His voice was a little garbled from the toothpaste.

She started, and blinked rapidly. “I can’t see.”

His stomach dropped. “What?”

“Well—more like everythings fuzzy. A-and its—black, like, around the edges of my vision.”

“Clarke—” he began.

She nodded her head, already ahead of him. “Hospital, yes, I know.” She shoved her comforter and blankets away. “C’mon, help me up.”

His leg wouldn’t stop shaking as he waited in the waiting room. When Clarke had told her boss about her symptoms, he immediately suggested a neurological exam, and whisked her away.

And Bellamy was terrified because not only had the doctor recognized a problem that required a _neurological exam_ —and ASAP—but because _what the fuck was a neurological exam._

She was released eventually, and Bellamy bombarded her with questions, obviously, but she remained quiet.

He clenched his jaw. “Clarke, talk to me. You’re scaring me.”

She gave him a small smile, but it didn’t meet her eyes. “I’m sure it’s nothing. They just want to do an MRI and possibly a CT scan just to be safe.”

He tried to read her eyes, but she looked away, and was rushed into another room.

He swallowed. _Safe from what?_

It was twice now that he walked into her now-official hospital room with tears streaming down her cheeks.

And his heart broke for the girl he loved when she said those two words: _brain tumor_.

 _Why_.

“No one knows what caused it.”

 _Why_.

“No one really ever knows why brain tumors happen.”

 _Why_.

“I’m sorry.”

 _Why_.

“They said I have three months.”

Why.

He quit his two jobs working as a bartender and a mechanic a week later. His coworker at the bar only grunted when he left; they were never really friends in the first place, only just drinking buddies and occasionally placed bets against each other when they played pool. His boss at the auto repair shop, Raven Reyes—who, coincidentally was Finn’s ex-girlfriend—was concerned with his sudden departure, and called his cell persistently, demanding answers, because apparently he was “a damn good mechanic, and he could get places if he wanted to so come back, dammit.” He only said there was family problems—which, he didn’t realize until that moment how true that was because Clarke was his family, and his future if she’d take him—and politely asked her to never call back. She didn’t.

Instead he spent his time studying for finals and visiting Clarke at the hospital. She refused chemotherapy, said there was no point since she already had a death date. It would only pile on to her mom’s bills, not that that’s a problem exactly, considering how much money she has.

She insisted he was wasting her time on her, but everytime he would only just say, “You’re my best friend, Clarke. I will always choose you.”

The only thing he would not say to her was that he was in love with her, because he was trying so hard to undo that, to not be in love with her anymore, so that it wouldn’t hurt so bad when she was gone, because, dammit, this wasn’t a book and she wasn’t going to get better and he needed to open his eyes.

Clarke requested to stay at home—with him, in their shared apartment—for her final weeks, and because it was technically her death wish, she was granted permission, so long as a nurse checked up on her three times a week.

Bellamy and Clarke spent the weeks on the couch rewatching their favorite movies or snuggled up in her bed reading a book.

One night, she twisted his SOULMATE bracelet around his wrist, and said, “These bracelets represent everything we are,” a watery smile played on her lips.

Bellamy looked down at them, gazing at them like they were made of gold, and his throat tightened. He used to think of how silly and childish those bracelets were.

“But they’re my favorite thing in the whole world,” she continued. “I couldn’t ask for a better fake-soulmate.”

His fingers tapped his TiMER. Fuck the TiMER.

He kissed her then, without her asking him to. It was soft, slow. He loved her and he couldn’t deny it anymore, fate and soulmates and TiMERs be damned. Because of her, he learned to love like he had never loved before. She cried as he kissed her and he reckoned she felt the same way.

“I don’t want you to go,” he whispered against her lips.

She pulled back slightly and ran a hand down his wet cheeks. “I don’t want to leave you.”

Later that night, after everything was said and done, it was the aneurysm that took her life. His wrist stung suddenly, and he jerked up in bed, Clarke still beside him.

He glanced down at his wrist, where the TiMER was, and saw that it was going berserk. For the first time since he was a kid, it was no longer blank. What he flashed on the small screen made his stomach drop: 

— — —

DECEASED 

— — — 

He understood. God, he _understood_.

His next moves were frantic with nerves. He shook Clarke. He shook and shook and shook, but she never stirred.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck.”

He rolled her over and laid his ear against her chest.

....Nothing. There was no sound, no movement, no heartbeat. 

“No,” his voice cracked. “No, god, Clarke. Please, _no_.”

His breathing became labored and shallow, and he struggled to get the words out of his mouth as he called for an ambulance.

He sat by her side, kissed her one more time. He could faintly hear the sound of sirens in the distance. “I’m sorry, Clarke. I love you and I’m sorry.”

Bellamy watched helplessly as the medics took her body away. “ _Dammit_!” He kicked the furniture in their apartment. “Dammit, Clarke, we were supposed to get married in two years, you’re my soulmate, and I’m in love with you, you weren’t supposed to leave me.”

He engraved her grave stone for her.

Over and over, he heard her voice in his head, her request to him and he will honor that request (more like demand). She was his fucking sun, and so long as the sun shined in the sky, he would learn to live without her. The sun is too big and great and free, and now she is too.

Bellamy thought of her everyday, and he lived, not just for her but for him too, and he carried on her memory. He lived for the both of them.

 

Epilogue: the day everything ended.

 

_Here lies Clarke Griffin_

_Beloved Daughter and Soulmate_

_1992-2015_

_“Don’t Be Sad, Be Happy”_

_May We Meet Again_

 

(And they did).

 

**And I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again.**

 


End file.
